Obituary of Margaret B Cratty

Margaret Brown Cratty (Peggy), was born in Brooklyn, NY, June 14, 1926. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College at a time when women were expected to marry and become home-makers, she traveled by boat, to Istanbul, Turkey where she taught chemistry, biology, and physics at Uskudar American Academy for Girls from 1948 to 1951. Her summers were spent as a physician’s assistant, riding on horseback to make house-calls in the Turkish countryside. As telephone calls were too expensive, for three years she was only able to communicate through snail mail with her fiancée, Robert Mason, whom she married in 1952.  

After earning a Master’s Degree from NYU, she began a teaching career teaching science at the Master’s School in Dobbs Ferry, NY. She continued there until they moved first to Pennsylvania, and then to Clinton, NY in 1971 with their 4 daughters who graduated from the school system there. 

Known to her students as Margaret Mason, Peggy was a passionate and beloved teacher of Earth Science and Biology at Clinton Central School for 2 decades. After losing her first husband in 1978, Peggy returned to teach for a year in Turkey in 1980 along with her youngest daughter, Martha for a “change in perspective”, reuniting with a community she always loved. 

Ever a champion for equal rights, Peggy was the first president of - and a decades-long volunteer for - the Clinton A Better Chance chapter where she met and eventually married Leland (Bud) Cratty in 1982.  

Together they had great adventures, each sharing their passions with the other and their many beloved friends. Both avid opera buffs, they had season tickets to the Metropolitan in New York and Glimmerglass. Trips out west, to Europe, and to her beloved Turkey along with annual month-long visits to Costa Rica and Maine all contributed to their life filled with love, art, travel, and culture.  She will be missed by all who knew her. 

She is succeeded by her husband and their combined seven children; Elizabeth McGarry, Deborah Mason, Anne Mason, Martha Mason, Paul Cratty, Sarah Cratty, Susan Miller, and 12 grandchildren. A memorial service will take place at St. James Church on June 15 at 1 pm.  

In lieu of flowers, donations to A Better Chance would be gratefully appreciated.  Since 1961 the ABC Clinton chapter has placed young men and women of color in outstanding public schools, thus transforming the lives of hundreds of students.  

To donate online: www.abetterchanceclintonmv.org  

Or check mailed to: 

A Better Chance 

PO Box 139 

Clinton, NY  13323